European Patent Office – Computer Implemented Inventions

Procedural aspects at the European Patent Office
The EPO offers a wide range of services when treating international applications and has numerous agreements with other patent offices on recognition of the EPO’s products. Learn more about the benefits of those services for a US applicant.

Quality at the European Patent Office
The EPO has been consistently ranked no. 1 for quality among the major patent offices since 2010, consistently resulting in a user satisfaction rating of good or very good (above 91%1). The systems in place that contribute to the quality of the products delivered by the EPO and that support the EPO’s commitment to high quality will be discussed.

Amendments during the patent prosecution proceedings
To achieve legal certainty for the public, the European Patent Convention limits all amendments to the scope of the application as originally filed. The strict enforcement of this criterion by the EPO will be presented and explained.

Computer Implemented Inventions
Computer implemented inventions present several challenges for the applicant to avoid a rejection for being a computer program as such and for the patent offices to offer legal certainty and predictable results. We will discuss how, in its leading role among the major patent offices, the EPO has developed an approach that ensures that these difficulties are overcome. This approach also addresses the difficulties presented by applications in the highly sought-after fields of Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Computing.

the speakers

Raul Suarez y Gonzalezis Team Manager in the field of Graphical User Interfaces and Constructional Details of Computers since 2017. He was before examiner in the same field since 2004. Between 2008 and 2012 he has been active in the field of data exchange between IP offices in the context of WIPO, IP5 and the publication of European Patents. Before joining the EPO, Raul was an avionics system test engineer and responsible for the maintenance telecommunication systems in the Belgian Air Force. He completed a master in Electronics and Telecomuniations at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels, Belgium, and a master in Information Communication Technology at the University of Hasselt, Belgium.

Elena Lidia Toader is Team Manager in the field of Accessing, addressing or allocating within memory systems. Since 2008 she has been an examiner in this field and she also worked in various other fields in the Computers area. She became a coach in 2016 and she has been coaching new colleagues starting the job as an examiner. Before joining the EPO she worked as printer drivers developer for “Océ, a Canon company”. She also worked as embedded software developer for Siemens VDO Automotive. She completed a Master Degree in Advanced Computing Systems at Politehnica University of Timisoara and she graduated the Faculty of Automation and Computers at Politehnica University of Timisoara.

Hanno Wirtzis an examiner in the field of multiprocessing and distributed systems since 2015. Before joining the EPO, Hanno worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Chair of Communication and Distributed Systems, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany. He obtained his diploma (M.Sc. equivalent) in Computer Science from the same university in 2008 as well as completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science there in 2014. During his studies, Hanno worked as a software engineer in the telecommunication industry.

Marja Brouwers is a patent formalities specialist in the areas of search administration and examination. She entered the European Patent Office in 1998 working as a patent formalities officer in search administration. Between 2006 and 2010 she specialised in search administration and patent formalities examination. As a patent formalities specialist she is, among other things, involved in: on the job coaching of patent formalities and acting as quality officer to monitor the EPO’s quality objectives for patent administration.

TJ Klasen has been an examiner in the area of artificial intelligence since 2016. TJ’s experience in patents started in 2011 outside the Office when TJ joined a large Dutch IP firm. During his time as an European patent attorney, TJ advised clients on diverse patent related issues. Before making the switch to patents, TJ worked in industry as a hardware engineer in both the US and Belgium. TJ received his B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2002, and completed a Master in Artificial Intelligence at the KU Leuven in Belgium in 2003.